Sheridan Le Fanu

Considered "the father of the English ghost story," Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) isrecognized for combining Gothic literary conventions with realistic technique to create tales of psychological insight and supernatural terror. Among his most highly regarded works is In a Glass Darkly (1872), a collection of horror stories that includes the earliest example of a vampire story in English literature.

Biography

Of French Huguenot descent, Le Fanu was born in Dublin on August 28, 1814, the first son of Emma Lucretia Dobbin and Thomas Philip Le Fanu. His father, a clergyman in the Church of Ireland and nephew of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, served as the chaplain of the Royal Hibernian Military School in Phoenix Park during Le Fanu's early childhood. In 1826 the family moved to Abington in county Limerick, where Thomas Le Fanu had been appointed rector and dean of Emly. Le Fanu, who enjoyed the resources of his father's large library, was privately educated until his acceptance at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1833.

His university career was a success. He won academic honors and was active in debate and the historical society. After completing studies in classics he pursued legal studies at King's Inns in London but never took up the practice of law. His interests already lay in literary pursuits. As early as 1837 he had begun contributing to the Dublin University Magazine, and in 1839 he took ownership of the Irish Protestant newspaper The Warder. From this time on journalism constituted Le Fanu's foremost professional undertaking. He assumed a financial interest in several newspapers over the course of his career, including the Statesman, the Dublin Evening Mail, and Dublin University Magazine, and used these publications to promote his conservative political views.

In December 1843 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a barrister, and they had four children. Their years together were plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, and when she died in April 1858 at the age of thirty-four, it came as a life-shattering blow to Le Fanu, who blamed himself for her suffering. He wrote at the time, as quoted by Kathryn West in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "The greatest misfortune of my life has overtaken me. My darling wife is gone… . She was the light of my life." His grief was inconsolable, and from this point on he retired from public life.

One obituary notice, quoted by Roy B. Stokes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, later remarked: "He vanished so entirely that Dublin, always ready with a nickname, dubbed him 'The Invisible Prince;' and indeed he was for long almost invisible, except to his family and most familiar friends, unless at odd hours of the evening, when he might occasionally be seen, stealing, like the ghost of his former self, between his newspaper office and his home in Merrion Square; sometimes, too, he was to be encountered in an old out-of-the-way bookshop poring over some rare black letter Astrology or Demonology." However, it is during the period of his seclusion that he produced his most enduring works of fiction.

Le Fanu sold the Dublin University Magazine, which had become the main outlet of his short fiction, in 1869. He died in 1873. Of the effect of the seclusion of his final years on his literary work, biographer Michael H. Begnal commented, "Instead of limiting his artistic vision, it would seem that the seclusion of Sheridan LeFanu was a blessing in disguise, for it preserved him from the pitfalls of immersion in immediate social concern. Yet at the same time it induced him to concentrate upon the larger issues which were the true shapers of his time."

Early Works

Le Fanu's first published works of fiction were short stories printed in the Dublin University Magazine beginning in 1838. The earliest of these, "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter," draws on the Irish folk belief that the most recently deceased corpse in a cemetery must carry water to the thirsty souls already in purgatory. Though the story offers a comic explanation for the appearance of a ghost, the work is notable for introducing the character of Father Francis Purcell, a Catholic priest from Drumcoolagh in county Limerick, who serves as a connection for a number of stories later collected in The Purcell Papers (1880). Similarly, "The Fortunes of Robert Ardagh" employs a dual structure to tell the story of a mysterious murder, explained alternately as a manifestation of Satanic power and a rational series of unfortunate events.

The most famous of the Purcell stories is "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter," published in May 1839. In the story, Purcell relates a tale told to him by the owner of "a remarkable picture" painted by an artist named Godfrey Schalken - a portrait of a young woman named Rose whom he had once loved. Betrothed to a wealthy stranger whose ghoulish appearance is an omen of his diabolical nature, Rose returns home in an anguished state some months after her marriage, begging not to be left alone and crying, "The dead and the living cannot be one - God has forbidden it!" She mysteriously disappears from her room, and no trace of her is ever recovered. Sometime later Schalken experiences a vision of Rose beckoning him to follow her. He cannot resist, and she leads him to a richly outfitted bedchamber where she reveals - with "an arch smile, such as pretty women wear when engaged in successfully practising some roguish trick" - her demonic husband waiting for her in a black-curtained bed. The painter faints at the sight but paints a faithful representation of what he has seen.

A somewhat later tale, "The Watcher," was included in Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851) and revised as "The Familiar" for In a Glass Darkly. The story relates events leading up to the death of Captain James Barton, who is haunted by a strange figure who may or may not be a ghost, but whose relentless appearance causes Barton to lose his senses and eventually his life. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography Gary William Crawford called the story "remarkably sophisticated for its day," noting that "the lingering uncertainty about what happens … invokes a genuine frisson." A story first published in 1853, "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street," again depicts the persecution of the living by the dead when two students rent a house in Dublin that had once belonged to a judge who had sentenced many convicts to hang. Only in the midst of their terror do they learn that he had ultimately hanged himself in the house in his despair and madness. The story was later revised as "Mr. Justice Harbottle" and included in In a Glass Darkly.

Later Career

Le Fanu published no fiction works during the period 1853 to 1861, an unsettled time in his family life, but his later period proved to be the most productive. When Le Fanu resumed his literary output he published The House by the Churchyard (1863), a many-faceted novel that combines comedy, mystery, history, and horror, and Wylder's Hand (1864), a successful tale of rivalry and murder. His next work, Uncle Silas (1864), is set in Derbyshire, England, and is Le Fanu's best-known Gothic mystery. In the story Maud Ruthyn is the niece of a man suspected though never proven to have committed a murder years before. A wealthy heiress, she comes under his care when her father dies and once in his household becomes herself the intended victim of a murder plot calculated by her uncle, her cousin, and an evil governess in hopes of gaining Maud's fortune. She escapes when the governess is mistakenly killed in her place, and the uncle's true character is revealed. The fourth of his sensational novels published during this period, Guy Deverell (1865), centers on the Marlowe estate, illegitimately acquired by Sir Jekyl Marlowe, and the efforts of Monsieur Varbarriere to reinstate the rightful heir.

Le Fanu also produced several additional novels over the next few years, including the romances All in the Dark (1866) and Haunted Lives (1868), and the mysteries The Tenants of Malory (1867), A Lost Name (1867-1868), and The Wyvern Mystery (1869).

In a Glass Darkly

Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly contains a group of his most chilling horror tales, "Green Tea," "The Familiar," "Mr. Justice Harbottle," "The Room in the Dragon Volant," and "Carmilla," all purportedly taken from the files of Dr. Martin Hesselius, a German doctor with an interest in psychic phenomena. "Green Tea" is among the best known of Le Fanu's works of supernatural terror, and in 1947 V. S. Pritchett named it "one of the best half-dozen ghost stories in the English language." It concerns Reverend Robert Jennings, a clergyman suffering from a nervous condition. Engaged in a study of ancient religions, Jennings reports that he has been haunted by a little black monkey and suggests that perhaps it is a hallucination brought on by drinking large amounts of green tea. The presence of the monkey begins to interfere with Jennings's duties and with his research, and the creature begins to urge evil actions on the increasingly distressed clergyman. Ultimately, Jennings commits suicide.

The final tale in the collection, "Carmilla" is also the most important from a literary standpoint for it introduces the vampire legend into English literature. Set in an isolated castle occupied by an innocent young girl and her father, the story draws on conventions of the Gothic to heighten terror. Carmilla is a young woman who is brought into the castle to recuperate after a carriage accident. She gives no information about her past, but resembles a dead woman whose portrait hangs in the castle. The heroine of the tale suffers visions of a nocturnal visitor and is slowly drawn into intimate association with Carmilla, whose possessiveness and passion overpower the innocent girl. When Carmilla's true nature as a vampire is discovered, she is killed.

Le Fanu, though not as well known as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, or Mary Shelley, remains a seminal figure in the advancement of horror writing, and his works continue to find new audiences through reprint editions. His works expanded the vocabulary of Victorian Gothic to include the deeper effects of psychological terror that characterize modern supernatural horror. In describing what set Le Fanu's stories apart, Pritchett wrote: "LeFanu's ghosts are the most disquieting of all ghosts… . The secret doubt, the private shame, the unholy love, scratch away with malignant patience in the guarded mind. It is we who are the ghosts. Let illness, late nights and green tea weaken the catch we normally keep clamped so firmly down, and out slink one by one all the hags and animals of moral or Freudian symbolism."

Le Fanu died on February 10, 1873, in Dublin, Ireland.

Books

Begnal, Michael H., Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Bucknell University Press, 1971.

Campbell, James L., Supernatural Fiction Writers, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985.

Crawford, Gary William, J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, 1995.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 21: Victorian Novelists Before 1885, edited by Ira B. Nadel and William E. Fredeman, The Gale Group, 1983.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 178: British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers before World War I, edited by Darren Harris-Fain, The Gale Group, 1997.

Kollmann, Judith J., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 70: British Mystery Writers, 1860-1919, edited by Bernard Benstock and Thomas F. Staley, The Gale Group, 1988.

Lovecraft, H. P., Supernatural Horror in Literature, Ben Abramson, 1945.

McCormack, W. J., Sheridan Le Fanu, 3rd ed., Sutton, 1997.

Melada, Ivan, Sheridan Le Fanu, Twayne, 1987.

Pritchett, V. S., introduction to In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan LeFanu, John Lehmann, 1947.

West, Kathryn, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 159: British Short-Fiction Writers, 1800-1880, edited by John R. Greenfield, The Gale Group, 1996.

Periodicals

Criticism, Fall 1996.

Nineteenth-Century Literature, September 1992.

Studies in Short Fiction, Winter 1987.

Studies in the Novel, Summer 1997.

Online

"Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73)," http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Fanu.html (February 11, 2003).

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan (1814-1873), novelist. Born in Dublin, of Huguenot extraction, he was educated at home before entering TCD. A growing involvement in writing and publishing led to his becoming editor and/or proprietor of The Warder, The Dublin Evening Packet, the Evening Mail, and the Dublin University Magazine. Neither of Le Fanu's first two full-length narratives, The Cock and Anchor (1845) and The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien (1847), enjoyed success, and it was not until 1863 that he returned to novel-writing with The House by the Churchyard. Eleven other novels quickly followed, most of them appearing first as serials in the Dublin University Magazine. These were Wylder's Hand (1864), Uncle Silas (1864), Guy Deverell (1865), All in the Dark (1866), The Tenants of Malory (1867), A Lost Name (1868), Haunted Lives (1868), The Wyvern Mystery (1869), Checkmate (1870), The Rose and the Key (1871), and Willing to Die (1873). He also published the story collections Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851), Chronicles of Golden Friars (1871), and In a Glass Darkly (1872). Le Fanu excelled in documenting stress-induced states of consciousness, looking out on a frightening world where the evidence of the senses and of the powers of reasoning are jeopardized. A. P. Graves issued Le Fanu's Poems in 1896.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, poet and author of short stories in the horror genre, was born on August 28, 1814, in Dublin, Ireland . His father was chaplain of the Royal Hiberian Military School, and Le Fanu was born on its premises. His great-uncle was the heralded Irish dramatist Richard Brimsley Sheridan. At age 14, he composed a long Irish poem, which launched his literary career.

Le Fanu's formal literary career began in 1838 when "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter" was published in the Dublin University Magazine. Over the next 15 years he wrote 23 stories and two novels. Most of these were set in Ireland and focused on aspects of the Irish character. With few exceptions, they have generally been judged as mediocre, in part due to Le Fanu's inability to relate to the Irish masses, whom he tended to stereotype because of the religious disagreements that separated him from them. However, he did begin his venture into supernatural horror, and in one of his stories, "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter," he touched on themes later developed in his most famous work, "Carmilla."

In 1861 Le Fanu purchased the Dublin University Magazine, which he edited for the next eight years. During the early 1860s Le Fanu wrote four novels. He continued to write novels for the rest of his life, but they never gained a popular audience. It was his short stories that brought him public attention. 1866 was a watershed year for Le Fanu; seven of his short stories appeared in Charles Dickens's All the Year Round, among the most prestigious periodicals in England, launching an era of production of some masterful short literary pieces. At this time he was becoming increasingly pessimistic about life in general and the course of Irish politics in particular. He seems to have drawn on the negative aspects of his own life to write some of the great supernatural horror tales of the period.

Critics agree that the stories published in his collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) are his best stories, though they would disagree on which one is actually the best. However, the one that has attained the highest level of fame, even after long neglect of Le Fanu's work, is "Carmilla". "Carmilla," only the third vampire story in English, is still one of the best. It told the story of Laura, the daughter of an Austrian civil servant named Karnstein, who was attacked by a female vampire variously named Carmilla, Mircalla, and Millarca. The story traced Laura's early childhood encounter with Carmilla, an experience almost forgotten until the vampire reappeared when Laura was in her late teens. In the end, the victims and their family tracked Carmilla to her resting place and destroyed her. First published in several parts in Dark Blue magazine (December 1871-March 1872), "Carmilla" provided a major building block of the modern vampire myth. It was read by Bram Stoker a later resident of Dublin and, like Le Fanu, a graduate of Trinity University.

After his death in Dublin on February 7, 1873, Le Fanu's reputation drifted into almost a century of obscurity, although he had as fans such writers as Henry James and Dorothy Sayers. A major reason for his neglect by the literary elite seems to be the subject of his writing. For many decades the great majority of literary critics held supernatural horror fiction in disdain, and thus neglected its more able writers. As gothic fiction came into its own in the last generation, critical reappraisal of the genre quickly followed. The new era of appreciation of Le Fanu really began in 1964 when E. F. Bleiler completed an edited edition of the Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu, published by Dover. Then in 1977, under the editorship of Devendra P Varma , Arno Press released the 52 volume Collected Works of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

It is among vampire fans, however, that Le Fanu is most remembered. Next to Dracula "Carmilla" has become the single vampire story most frequently brought to the screen, and, like Dracula, it has inspired other stories of its leading vampire characters. Among the film versions of "Carmilla" are Blood and Roses (1961), Blood and Black Lace (1964), and The Vampire Lovers (1970). One of its best adaptations is a made-for-television version entitled Carmilla that was presented in 1989 on Showtime's Nightmare Classics. It has often been said that Vampyr the classic vampire movie directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, was based on "Carmilla," but, except for being a story with a female vampire, it bears little resemblance to "Carmilla." Le Fanu wrote a second, lesser-known story at least suggestive of vampirism, "The Room in the Dragon Volant," which was made into a movie, The Inn of the Flying Dragon (originally Ondskans Vardshus), in 1981.

Browne, Nelson. Sheridan Le Fanu. London: Arthur Barker, 1951. 135 pp.
Le Fanu, J. Sheridan. Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu. Edited by E. F. Bleiler. New York: Dover Publications, 1964.
---. Collected Works of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Edited by Devendra P. Varma. 52 vols. New York: Arno Press, 1977. McCormack, W. J. Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. 310 pp.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Le Fanu
Born	28 August 1814(1814-08-28) Dublin, Ireland
Died	7 February 1873 (aged 58) Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Novelist
Literary movement	Gothic horror, dark romanticism, mystery
Influences Sir Walter Scott, Ann Radcliffe, Samuel Warren, Emanuel Swedenborg, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Influenced James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Charlotte Bronte

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the premier ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and had a seminal influence on the development of this genre in the Victorian era.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 2.1 The Purcell Papers 2.2 Spalatro 2.3 Historical fiction 2.4 Sensation novels 2.5 Major works 2.6 Other short-story collections 3 Further reading 4 References to Sheridan Le Fanu in fiction 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links

Biography

Sheridan Le Fanu was born at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would become a successful novelist. Within a year of his birth his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in the Phoenix Park, where his father, a Church of Ireland clergyman, was appointed to the chaplaincy of the establishment. The Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod were to feature in Le Fanu's later stories.^[1]

In 1826 the family moved to Abington in County Limerick, where Le Fanu's father Thomas became rector - this was his second rectorship in the south of Ireland. Although he had a tutor, Le Fanu also used his father's library to educate himself. His father was a stern Protestant churchman and imbued his family with a religious sense that bordered on Calvinism.^[1]

In 1832 the locality was affected by the disorders caused by the Tithe War. There were about six thousand Catholics in the parish of Abington, and only a few dozen Church of Ireland members. In bad weather the Dean cancelled Sunday services, as few if any parishioners would turn up. However, the poverty-stricken Catholics were compelled to pay tithes for the upkeep of the church of this tiny minority. The following year the family moved back temporarily to Dublin, to Williamstown Avenue in a southern suburb, where Thomas was to work on a Government commission.^[1]

Although the Le Fanu's father Thomas made efforts to keep up the facade of a comfortably-off family, they were constantly beset by financial problems. The reason that Thomas took the rectorships in the south of Ireland was financial, as they provided a decent living through tithes. However, from 1830, as the result of agitation against the tithes, this income began to decrease, and ceased entirely two years later. In 1838 the government instituted a scheme of paying rectors a fixed sum, but in the intervening period the Dean had little besides rent on some small properties he had inherited. In 1833 Thomas, who was broke, had to borrow £100 from his cousin Captain Dobbins (who himself ended up in the debtors' prison a few years later) to visit his dying sister in Bath, who was also deeply in debt due her medical bills. At his death Thomas had practically nothing to leave to his sons and his library had to be sold to pay off some of his debts. His widow went to stay with the younger son William.^[1]

Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin, where he was elected Auditor of the College Historical Society. Under a system peculiar to Ireland he did not have to live in Dublin to attend lectures, but was allowed to study at home and take examinations at the university when necessary. He was called to the bar in 1839, but he never practiced and soon abandoned law for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter" (1838). He became owner of several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin Evening Mail and the Warder.^[1]

On 18 December 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a leading Dublin barrister. Isaac Butt was a witness. They then travelled to his parents' home in Abington for Christmas. They took a house in Warrington Place near the Grand Canal in Dublin. Their first child, Eleanor, was born in 1845, then came Emma in 1846, Thomas, in 1847 and George in 1854.

In 1847 he supported John Mitchel and Thomas Meagher in their campaign against the indifference of the Government to the Irish Famine. Among others involved in this initiative were Samuel Ferguson and Isaac Butt. Butt contributed a forty-page analysis of the national disaster to the Dublin University Magazine in 1847.^[2] His support cost him the nomination as Tory MP for County Carlow in 1852.

The house on Merrion Square where Le Fanu lived

In 1856 the family moved from Warrington Place to Susanne's parents' house at 18 Merrion Square (now number 70, office of the Irish Arts Council). Her parents retired to live in England. Joseph never owned the house, but rented it from his brother-in-law for £22 per annum (which he still didn't manage to keep paid-up).

His personal life also became difficult at this time, as his wife suffered from increasing neurotic symptoms. She had a crisis of faith and tended to attend religious services at the nearby St. Stephen's Church and discuss religion with William, Joseph's younger brother, as Joseph apparently had stopped attending religious services. She suffered from anxiety after the deaths of several close relatives, including her father two years before, which may have led to marital problems.^[3]

In April 1858 she suffered a "hysterical attack" and died the following day in unclear circumstances. She was buried in the Bennett family vault in Mount Jerome Cemetery along with her father and brothers. Anguished excerpts from Le Fanu's diaries suggest that he felt guilt as well as loss. From then on he did not write any fiction until after the death of his mother in 1861. He turned to his cousin Lady Gifford for advice and encouragement - she remained a close correspondent until her death at the end of the decade.

In 1861 he became the editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and he began exploiting double exposure: serializing in the Dublin University Magazine and then revising for the English market. The House by the Churchyard and Wylder's Hand were both published in this way. After the lukewarm reviews of the former novel, set in the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le Fanu signed a contract with Richard Bentley, his London publisher, which specified that future novels be stories "of an English subject and of modern times", a step Bentley thought necessary in order for Le Fanu to satisfy the English audience. Le Fanu succeeded in this aim in 1864, with the publication of Uncle Silas, which he set in Derbyshire. In his very last short stories, however, Le Fanu returned to Irish folklore as an inspiration and encouraged his friend Patrick Kennedy to contribute folklore to the D.U.M. Le Fanu died in his native Dublin on 7 February 1873. Today there is a road in Ballyfermot, near his childhood home in south-west Dublin, named after him.

Work

Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman, with a penchant for frequently reworking plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces of writing. (Many of his novels are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories). He specialised in tone and effect rather than "shock horror", often following a mystery format. Key to his style was the avoidance of overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a possible "natural" explanation is left (barely) open—for instance, the demonic monkey in "Green Tea" could be a delusion of the story's protagonist, who is the only person to see it; in "The Familiar", Captain Barton's death seems to be of supernatural causes, but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may just be a real bird. This approach has proven important for later horror writers and also for other media (it is surely an antecedent to the film producer Val Lewton's principle of indirect horror). Though other writers have since chosen blunter approaches to supernatural fiction, Le Fanu's best tales, such as the vampire novella "Carmilla", remain some of the most chilling examples of the genre. He had enormous influence on the 20th century's most important ghost story writer, M. R. James. Although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and still remains comparatively strong.^[1]

The Purcell Papers

His earliest twelve short stories, written between 1838 and 1840 purport to be the literary remains of an 18th-century Catholic priest called Father Purcell. They were published in the Dublin University Magazine and were later collected as The Purcell Papers (1880). They are mostly set in Ireland and include some classic stories of gothic horror, featuring gloomy castles, supernatural visitations from beyond the grave, madness and suicide. Also apparent is an elegiac political dimension concerning the dispossession of the former Catholic aristocracy of Ireland, whose ruined castles stand as mute witness to this history. The stories include some widely anthologised pieces:

• "The Ghost and the Bonesetter" (1838), his first published story, in a jocular vein.
• "The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh" (1838), an enigmatic story involving a Faustian pact, set in the gothic surroundings of a castle in rural Ireland.
• "The Last Heir of Castle Connor" (1838), a non-supernatural tale, symbolic of the decline and expropriation of the ancient Catholic gentry of Ireland under the Protestant Ascendancy.
• "The Drunkard's Dream" (1838), of Hell.
• "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839), a disturbing story of a revenant coming back from beyond the grave to claim his bride: the old folkloric motif of the demon lover. This tale takes its inspiration from the atmospheric candlelit scenes of the 17th-century Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, who is the hero of the story. It was adapted and broadcast for television by the BBC for Christmas 1979.[1].
• "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839), an early version of his later novel Uncle Silas.
• "A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family" (1839), which may have influenced Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. This story was later reworked and expanded by Le Fanu as The Wyvern Mystery (1869).

Revised versions of "Irish Countess" and "Schalken" were reprinted in Le Fanu's first collection of short stories, the very rare Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851).

Spalatro

An anonymous novella Spalatro: from the notes of Fra Giacomo published in the Dublin University Magazine in 1843 was added to the Le Fanu canon as late as 1980, being recognised as being by Le Fanu by W.J. McCormack in his biography of that year. Spalatro has a typically Gothic period Italian setting, featuring a bandit as hero, in the mode of Ann Radcliffe (whose 1797 novel The Italian includes a repentant minor villain of the same name). More disturbing, however, is the hero Spalatro's necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, who seems to be a predecessor of Le Fanu's later female vampire Carmilla. Like Carmilla this undead femme fatale is not portrayed in an entirely negative light and attempts, but fails, to save the hero Spalatro from the eternal damnation which seems to be his destiny.

Le Fanu wrote this story after the death of his elder sister Catherine in March 1841. She had been ailing for about ten years, and her death came as a great shock to him.^[4]

Historical fiction

Le Fanu's first novels were historical, in the mode of Sir Walter Scott, though with an Irish background. Like Scott, Le Fanu gave a sympathetic account of the old Jacobite cause:

• The Cock and Anchor (1845), a story of old Dublin. It was reissued with slight alterations as Morley Court in 1873.
• The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien (1847).
• The House by the Churchyard (1863), the last of Le Fanu's novels to be set in the past and, as mentioned above, the last with an Irish setting. It is noteworthy that here Le Fanu's historical mode is blended with his later Gothic mode, influenced by his reading of the classic writers of that genre, such as Ann Radcliffe. This novel was later an important source for Joyce's Finnegans Wake and is set in Chapelizod, where Le Fanu lived in his youth.

Sensation novels

Le Fanu published many novels in the contemporary sensation fiction mode of Wilkie Collins and others:

• Wylder's Hand (1864).
• Guy Deverell (1865).
• All in the Dark (1866), satirising Spiritualism.
• The Tenants of Malory (1867).
• A Lost Name (1868).
• Haunted Lives (1868).
• The Wyvern Mystery (1869).
• Checkmate (1871).
• The Rose and the Key (1871), which describes the horrors of the private lunatic asylum, a classic gothic trope.
• Willing to Die (1872).

Major works

His best-known works, still widely read today, are:

The seductive vampire Carmilla attacks the sleeping Bertha Rheinfeldt.

• Uncle Silas (1864), a macabre mystery novel and classic of gothic horror. It is a much extended adaptation of his earlier short story "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess", with the locale switched from Ireland to England. A film version of the same name was made by Gainsborough Studios in 1947, and a remake entitled The Dark Angel, starring Peter O'Toole as the title character, was made in 1987.
• In a Glass Darkly (1872), a collection of five short stories in the horror and mystery genres, presented as the posthumous papers of the occult detective Dr Hesselius:

• "Green Tea"
• "The Familiar"
• "Mr Justice Harbottle" (perhaps better known in its earlier, very different version, "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street")
• "The Room in the Dragon Volant", not a ghost story but a notable mystery story that includes the theme of premature burial
• "Carmilla", a compelling tale of a female vampire, set in darkest central Europe. This story was to greatly influence Bram Stoker in the writing of Dracula. It also served as the basis for several films, including Hammer's The Vampire Lovers (1970), Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960), Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) and Harry Kümel's Daughters of Darkness in 1971.

Other short-story collections

• Chronicles of Golden Friars (1871), a collection of short stories set in the imaginary English village of Golden Friars, including:

• "A Strange Adventure in the Life of Miss Laura Mildmay", within which is incorporated the story "Madam Crowl's Ghost".
• "The Haunted Baronet", a novella.
• "The Bird of Passage".

• The Watcher and Other Weird Stories (1894), another collection of short stories, published posthumously.
• Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1923), uncollected short stories gathered from their original magazine publications and edited by M. R. James:

• "Madam Crowl's Ghost", from All the Year Round, December 1870.
• "Squire Toby's Will", from Temple Bar, January 1868.
• "Dickon the Devil", from London Society, Christmas Number, 1872.
• "The Child That Went with the Fairies", from All the Year Round, February 1870.
• "The White Cat of Drumgunniol", from All the Year Round, April 1870.
• "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street", from the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851.
• "Ghost Stories of Chapelizod", from the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851.
• "Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling", from the Dublin University Magazine, April 1864.
• "Sir Dominick's Bargain", from All the Year Round, July 1872.
• "Ultor de Lacy", from the Dublin University Magazine, December 1861.
• "The Vision of Tom Chuff", from All the Year Round, October 1870.
• "Stories of Lough Guir", from All the Year Round, April 1870.

The publication of this book, which has often been reprinted, led to the revival in interest in Le Fanu, which has continued to this day.

Further reading

There is an extensive critical analysis of Le Fanu's supernatural stories (particularly "Green Tea", "Schalken the Painter" and "Carmilla") in Jack Sullivan's book Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu to Blackwood (1978). Other books on Le Fanu include Wilkie Collins, Le Fanu and Others (1931) by S. M. Ellis, Sheridan Le Fanu (1951) by Nelson Browne, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1971) by Michael H. Begnal, Sheridan Le Fanu (third edition, 1997) by W. J. McCormack and Vision and Vacancy: The Fictions of J. S. Le Fanu (2007) by James Walton. Le Fanu, his works, and his family background are explored in Gavin Selerie's mixed prose/verse text Le Fanu's Ghost (2006). Jim Rockhill's introductions to the three volumes of the Ash-Tree Press edition of Le Fanu's short supernatural fiction (Schalken the Painter and Others [2002], The Haunted Baronet and Others [2003], Mr Justice Harbottle and Others [2005]) provide a perceptive account of Le Fanu's life and work.

References to Sheridan Le Fanu in fiction

In Dorothy L. Sayers's novel Gaudy Night, set in 1935, the main character Harriet Vane, a crime fiction writer, covers her investigation on a mystery case at her fictional Oxford college Shrewsbury with research on Sheridan Le Fanu. In Thrones, Dominations, the last, unfinished novel by Sayers, completed by Jill Paton Walsh, the Author's Note states that Harriet Vane published a monograph on Sheridan Le Fanu in 1946, drawing on this research.

See also

• List of horror fiction authors

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McCormack
2. ^ McCormack p. 101
3. ^ McCormack pp. 125-128
4. ^ McCormack p. 113

References

• McCormack, W. J. (1997). Sheridan Le Fanu. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0750914890. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sheridan Le Fanu

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Sheridan Le Fanu

• E-texts of many Le Fanu stories and information on his life
• Sheridan Le Fanu database
• Sheridan Le Fanu at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Complete text of Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
• Works by Sheridan Le Fanu at Project Gutenberg
• A talk by M. R. James on LeFanu
• Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies
• Complete text of Madam Crowl's Ghost and other tales of mystery
• Article by Brian Showers on the location of the Le Fanu burial plot
• Free mp3 download of "Uncle Silas" at Librivox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Carmilla" at Librivox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Schalken the Painter" at Librivox.org
• Free mp3 download of "Green Tea" at Librivox.org

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